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A drone strike in northern Iraq on Friday targeted a Syrian Kurdish leader who has been an American ally in the fight against Islamic State, U.S. officials said.
Three U.S. military personnel were in the convoy with the leader, Gen.
Mazloum Abdi,
at the time of the attack. There were no casualties.
“I can confirm that there was a strike on a convoy in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan Region. That convoy included U.S. military personnel. There were no casualties,” Col.
Joe Buccino,
spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in an email. “We are currently investigating this attack.”
The strike is believed by Western officials to have been carried out by Turkey, which sees the Syrian Kurds as a foe.
Gen. Abdi is the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S. military’s main partner in Syria in its fight with Islamic State militants.
The relationship between the two allies has been a close one—so close that a U.S. service member was riding in the same vehicle with Gen. Abdi at time of the drone attack, according to a U.S. official.
But Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has long seen Gen. Abdi’s forces as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant group that has carried out attacks in Turkey.
That complex situation has cast a shadow over U.S. operations against Islamic State for years. U.S. officials say that Gen. Abdi’s forces have been vital for the American-led campaign to defeat Islamic State. Turkey, a NATO ally, regards those forces as a danger. U.S. assurances that Gen. Abdi isn’t fomenting attacks on Turkey and isn’t part of the PKK have been ignored in Ankara.
The relationship between U.S. military officials and Gen. Abdi began in 2014 after Islamic State militants took the Iraqi city of Mosul. The U.S. currently has about 900 troops in Syria, most of whom advise and support Gen. Abdi’s forces.
The CENTCOM statement didn’t specifically mention Turkey or Gen. Abdi.
“We forcefully oppose any action that threatens the safety and security of U.S. personnel,” Col. Buccino said. “U.S. forces remain in Iraq and Syria in support of local partner forces to achieve the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
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